Monday, May 21, 2018

Diamonds in the Garden (an unloved kit)

It's going to take me awhile to finish this quilt, so I thought I had best give it a name.
  I'm calling it Diamonds in the Garden (an unloved kit).
I started it about 10 years ago. It was a deep discount from Connecting Threads, a kit that was on their discontinued/sale page. I was a beginning quilter and I thought it would be a good practice quilt.  Ha! I was too busy quilting to finish this top.

When I cleaned out my studio last year I rediscovered it and wasn't any more excited about it than I was 10 years ago.

This was what I found:
  
I had all the diamond strips pieced and the rest was still in folded fat quarters and yardage!  I had long since lost (I probably tossed it) the pattern, but remembered that there were folk-art applique flowers meandering through the negative spaces.  They are easy to make, so I just winged it there.  I did all the applique and I was sick of it by then, so I put it away for another year.




April 30th, 2018, I decided I would publicly declare my intent to finish this unloved kit by using it as my May, One Monthly Goal.



I got out the fabric for the border and didn't like it at all.

  Still, I used it . . . and it's growing on me.

I used up all the border fabric and it made a huge 8-inch border.  I had precut the 2 inch blue binding as the pattern must have told me to to do....something I would never do today.

Still, I am not too excited about this top.  I just let it hang for about a week , it just doesn't look ready to quilt . . . should I cut down this large border? It just needs something!! 

I envisioned the matching blue binding just making another large blue square WAY out there at the end of that 8 inch border.


My brain must have worked on it all night, because when I got up, I knew I was going to scallop the edge and cut brand new bias binding in blue.

I had just the tool to make it happen. I bought this at my very first quilt show.  I bought a lot of stuff in the beginning that I have never used! 😟

But here we are, and I got it out and read how to use it.  The directions were pretty confusing and not enough detail for me to figure out how to divide my 91¾ x 69⅜ inch quilt top so all the scallops on the sides were the same size as the top and bottom....and how do I make the corner fit into the divisions?

Sheesh....I took Calculus in college, but this "easy scallop tool" was beyond me.
I Googled a video and it was simple, I just needed an explanation how to do the corners and where to start measuring.  

Here is the best video I found: Easy Scallop

Once I got the scallops marked, I also marked the piano-key quilt lines.  This brought me to another question, how will I do the corners?  If I fan the piano keys out around the corner, all 10 of them will start from the same inside point
which will make the quilt stick up like a tent when it's all done.  I decided, since this is a whimsical quilt, I will stick in a matching flower in each corner to make a larger place for the fan lines to start and stop. 

This morning, I quilted the top border and stitched-in-the-ditch the first sashing and first row of diamonds.  I used Dream Puff batting, as I plan to do a lot of quilting in the neutral spaces and want the diamonds and applique to puff.

I am getting a little exited to see where this goes!













6 comments:

  1. The scalloped edge will look fantastic on this unloved kit.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your quilting is turning it into a much better looking quilt! Even if you don't like it, someone will be sure to LOVE it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. So it’s true, leave a quilt in a quiet dark place long enough and it will mature into a treasure!
    Scallop border perfect!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the link to the Scallop video. I also have the scallop, but, haven't even opened the package. Maybe I'll use it one day, now that I have the video 'pinned' on Pinterest.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's going to a fabulous, beautiful place! Your solution on the corner quilting is perfect, and the quilt is absolutely beautiful. Once it's quilted, it will be even more marvelous and wonderful. And you're going to make it by the end of the month!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your quilting is going to make this quilt into a loved quilt!

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...